In Europe and Asia mankind, and the distinctions of civilization, form the principal features which interest the traveller and the historian. In the new world, man and his productions almost disappear amidst the stupendous display of wild and gigantic nature. The human race here either presents but a few remnants of indigenous hordes, slightly advanced in civilization, or it presents that uniformity of manners and institutions which are observable in the European colonists. But if America occupy no very important place in the history of mankind, and those revolutions which have agitated the human race, it offers an ample field to the labours of the naturalist. A luxuriance of vegetation, an eternal spring of organic life, climates varying by stages as we climb the sides of the Andes: and the means afforded for the study of geology, mineralogy, and natural philosophy, infinitely exceed those of any other part of the world.

With respect to the original inhabitants of America. There are few inquiries more interesting to a philosophic mind, than that which would explain the original peopling of this great continent. Various conjectures have been formed on the subject. Some writers have ascribed the first settlements in America to the Canaanites; and others to the Phoenicians, to the Carthaginians, to the Greeks, to the Scythians, and to other nations. But, to account for these settlements, by supposing that, in a remote period, some vessel may have accidently been driven thither from the eastern parts of the world, is to rely upon a rather improbable conjecture. Other writers are inclined to think, that the two continents of America and Africa were originally united, and that they were subsequently severed by some violent convulsion of nature. This likewise is a conjecture, unsupported by evidence. An inspection of a map of the world, however, will show that, at this day, the north-eastern part of Siberia, and the north-west part of America, are nearly joined; that is, they are separated by a strait not more than twenty miles in width; and that, in a lower latitude, a chain of islands reaches almost from one shore to the other. The inhabitants of these opposite shores resemble each other

in features, complexion, manners, habits, and customs, and it is far from improbable, that some families or tribes of wandering Tartars may have migrated across Behring's Straits, and may thus have given origin to the population of America. Among all the American tribes, the Esquimaux excepted, there is a great resemblance, both in form of body, and in qualities of mind; and in every prevailing feature, both of person and disposition, they resemble the tribes that are scattered through the north-east parts of Asia. The Esquimaux are not unlike the Greenlanders, in their aspect, dress, mode of life, and language; and Labrador and Greenland are separated from each other only by a narrow strait.

With the exception of some provinces of North America, and of a few individuals in the central regions, the native inhabitants of this country are of a light brown, or copper colour. In Africa, the torrid zone is inhabited by negroes, and the blackness of their colour is ascribed to the intensity of the heat in the tropical climates. Whence then does it arise that, within the region of the torrid zone, there are no negroes in America? And how is it that the copper-colour is there so prevalent? To the first of these questions it may be answered, that America is destitute of negroes, because there the heat of the torrid zone is more equally distributed than it is in Africa; and therefore the same effect could not be produced in both regions in the same degree. To the latter it may be replied, that the copper-colour is preserved in the highest latitudes of the New World by the state of society, which, among the American Indians, is uniform; by most of them using certain red pigments, or by some modifying circumstances which we know to exist, but which cannot easily be explained. The whole race of American Indians is distinguished by a peculiar thickness of the skin. Another peculiarity has been remarked of them, that they have no beards. The latter, however, is occasioned by their constant practice of pulling out by the roots all the hairs, as soon as they appear.

The ordinary stature of the native Americans is not very different from that of Europeans. But, owing either

to their inactive life, or to some constitutional tendency with which we are unacquainted, their bodies are pe culiarly plump and full.

Of the manners and habits of life of the several tribes of American Indians, we shall hereafter have occasion to speak.

When

The great variation of climate affects very sensibly the constitution of the inhabitants. People become old in America sooner than in Europe. Upon females the influence of the climate is still more sensible. young the women are generally beautiful, and particularly at Philadelphia: but after twenty, they begin to lose their fresh colour and teeth, and at twenty-five many of them would pass for Europeans of forty!

The number of children which die in infancy is proportionably greater than in Europe; colds, hoopingcoughs, and disorders of the throat, taking off great multitudes.

The character of the inhabitants of the different states may be expected to be as dissimilar as the climates of the countries which they inhabit are various. The climate itself, the original formation of the colonies, their ancient governments, and the diversity of European na tions, of which the population of the United States is composed, has in reality impressed this difference between them. The possession and usage of slaves in some states, a traffic now almost wholly abolished, must have introduced a considerable difference in their man

ners.

The traits of character common to all, are an ardour for enterprize, greediness of gain, and an advantageous opinion of themselves. Habituated to fatigue from their infancy, having for the most part made their fortune by labour, it is not become repugnant even to those in the most easy circumstances. While they wish to enjoy the sweets of life, they do not regard them as absolutely necessary; they know how to quit them, and travel in the woods whenever their interest requires it; they can forget them whenever a reverse of fortune takes them away; and they know how to run after fortune when she es capes them.

The NATURAL PRODUCTIONS of America are wholly dif

ferent from the productions of the old continents. Most of them differ, both in shape and appearance, from those of every other part of the world. The quadrupeds in general are smaller and weaker: there are none equal in size to the elephant and the giraffe, and few so large as the camel or the horse. Some of the reptiles, however, are of enormous size. The woods have an infinitely more majestic appearance than the forests of Europe they represent, in their various ages, the succession of centuries; and a new soil, of immense depth, is in some places formed by the remains of ancient vegetation. But what is chiefly remarkable in America, is the existence, beneath the surface of the ground, of the fossil or mineralized remains of immense quadrupeds. Particulars of which will be given hereafter.

As it respects the Government of the United States, its political constitution is perhaps the freest and most incorrupt of any. It is a pure system of representation, which includes the voice and will of the whole population. The Legislature consists of a House of Represen tatives and a Senate, corresponding to our Commons and Lords, with a President, elected every four years, instead of an hereditary Monarch, for the executive power.

Every private individual in the United States has perfect liberty of conscience. There are, however some states in which the constitution requires every citizen, entering upon the legislative or executive function, to swear, "that he believes in one God, in a future state of rewards and punishments, in the scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and that he professes the protestant religion."

Dr. Moore, anticipating a future era of improvement, says, "Here the sciences and the arts of civilized life. are to receive their highest improvement: here civil and religious liberty are to flourish, unchecked by the cruel hand of civil or ecclesiastical tyranny: here genius, aided by all the improvements of former ages, is to be exerted in humanizing mankind, in expanding and enriching their minds with religious and philosophical knowledge, and in planning and executing a form of government, which shall involve all the excellencies of

former governments, with as few of their defects as is consistent with the imperfections of human affairs, and which shall be calculated to protect and unite, in a manner consistent with the natural rights of mankind, the largest empire that ever existed."

Speaking of the western portion of the United States, the learned Editor of the "Western Quarterly Reporter of Medical and Natural Science," says, "the time which has elapsed since the first settlement of this country is so short, and the changes effected have succeeded each

* Two numbers of the " Reporter" have just been received, from its printer and publisher J. P. Foote, Esq. by the editor of this work, accompanied by the following obliging letter; several particulars in which, are important to those who may design to emigrate to the Western portion of the United States.

Circinnati, 9th September, 1822.

DEAR SIR, I lost an opportunity of replying to your esteemed favour by Mr. Hilditch sometime since, which I regretted very much; and the present I had nearly lost, owing to sickness and death in my family, which has confined me to my house for some days past; I have just learned from Mr. H. that he intends to to depart in the course of a few hours, and the business that has accumulated on my hands during my confinement, gives me only an opportunity of employing a few minutes of that time in writing to you. I send you herewith some publications on the Geography of this Country, and two numbers of a periodical work of which I have commenced the publication here, hoping that you may derive some amusement and information from them. The REPORTER may serve to give you some idea of the state of literature and science among us. The others will shew the rapid increase of this Western World.

The classes of men to whom the inducement for emigration to this country are greatest, are poor mechanics and labourers, and men with small incomes which are